Television Viewing Round-Up - June 2007

ITV1 was the only terrestrial channel to see a year on year rise in its viewing share in all homes for June, with Britain’s biggest commercial broadcaster up two percentage points.

Channel 4 felt the greatest decline in its share, down two percentage points for the month, whilst BBC One, BBC Two and Five also fell.

All Viewing

Despite the World Cup pulling in millions of viewers to ITV1 in June 2006 (see NewsLine), the channel still managed to push its viewing share up year on year for the month in 2007.

The channel held an 18.8% share for the month in all homes, and this was likely due to the immensely popular first series of Britain’s Got Talent, which regularly won the ratings war with its wacky mix of variety performances throughout June.

Simon Cowell’s talent show, which ran for a week, managed to pull in more than nine million adult viewers for the final (see NewsLine), which saw winner Paul Potts (not the Cambodian dictator but the Bristolian, piano-toothed opera singer) warming the hearts of the British public and restoring their faith in reality TV.

The World Cup seemed to have an effect on BBC One, however. In 2006, several matches bolstered the station’s viewing figures, with England’s victory over Paraguay netted a whopping 74% of adult viewers for BBC One, peaking at over 11 million in mid June, whilst England's gripping win against Ecuador brought in a massive 16.1 million adult viewers later in the month (see NewsLine).

For June 2007, the station dropped one percentage point. However, it has the highest viewing share in all homes at 22.7%. Doctor Who and Any Dream Will Do helped the channel to the top spot amongst the terrestrials, with millions of adult viewers joining the dishy doc on a Saturday evening and even more tuning in for the race to find Joseph.

The final of the campfest, which saw Lee Mead rightfully win the coveted West End role, attracted an average adult audience of 7.1 million (see NewsLine).

Meanwhile, BBC Two’s share in all homes dropped 0.3 percentage points year on year to 8.2%, whilst Channel 4 suffered a two percentage point drop to 9.4%.

The channel shed share as the Richard and Judy ‘You Say We Pay’ debacle continued (see NewsLine), and viewers lost interest in Big Brother 8 (see NewsLine) compared to Big Brother 7 /newsline/2006/06jun/26/overnights2.cfm.

Elsewhere, other channels bolstered their share in all homes, rising 2.1 percentage points year on year to take a 35.6% share in June 2007.

Digital Viewing

ITV1’s share also rose in digital homes, up 2.4 percentage points to reach 17.2%, not far from BBC One’s share of 20.5%.

BBC One, however, dropped 0.3 percentage points from its total year on year.

BBC Two was slightly up in digital homes. The station, which will be the first channel to have its analogue signal switched off when digital switchover begins (see NewsLine), now has a viewing share in digital homes of 6.8%.

Channel 4’s share in digital homes fell almost 1.5 percentage points to 8.4%, whilst Five’s dipped 0.4 percentage points to just under 5%.

Other channels saw a 0.5 percentage point decline, to leave a share of just over 42%.

Freeview Vs Sky

BBC One yet again retained its position as the most popular terrestrial channel in both Sky and Freeview homes, with a 24.2% share in Freeview homes and a 17.8% share in Sky homes.

Multichannel options continued their dominance, remaining the most popular channel choice in both Freeview and Sky homes. Viewing share of these digital channels is 50.6% in Sky homes and 32.6% in Freeview homes, with the difference due to the smaller channel choice available on Freeview.

ITV1, meanwhile, has a 19.1% share in Freeview homes and a 15.2% share in Sky homes.